Top 51 Quotes & Sayings by Mark Gatiss

Sci-fi and fantasy used to be a TV staple throughout my childhood. Then it just stopped dead. It was seen as culty, a minority interest.

I'm terribly nostalgic, but I'm with the Elizabethans who thought nostalgia was a disease. It's a dangerous place to be because you can get caught up in it.

I grew up with low self-esteem. I didn't think I was very pretty. I had glasses, red hair and was generally quite a spod.

The first film I can remember seeing on TV was 'The Brides of Dracula.' I was instantly hooked.

Grooming-wise, it is now a constant battle as I progressively turn into my father. I have to keep on top of ear and nose hair - things you never believe will happen to you. Suddenly I have a shaving brush in my ear and I don't know where it's come from, and the more hair I take the out, the more it surges back.

I always wanted to do Restoration comedy. It seems like so much fun.

My dad was quite a forbidding figure. I realise now that that was mainly because he worked so hard. He wasn't unkind, but he was a presence.

It's a cliche, but it's true that all the fun lies in baddies, grotesques and comic roles.

Even when I was a child, I always wanted to be older. I realised just in time that it's a mistake and to enjoy my youth while I had it.

'Misfits' is one of my favorite shows; I think it's a fantastic show.

The thing is, horror is a big part of 'Sherlock Holmes.' Doyle also wrote a lot of great horror stories, so there's a lot more horror in 'Holmes' that people possibly think of. There's a lot of curses and mysticism and real scares.

I love the Shakespeare history plays; I love the struggle for the crown as a plot.

I don't care what other people think any more about me writing my own parts.

Europe is so much the home of Horror, with its myths of vampires, werewolves, witchcraft and the undead, yet it's like those myths were exported to Hollywood, leaving Europe the room to develop a new tradition as a way of processing its traumas, particularly the two world wars.

'Son of Frankenstein' is never talked about in the same tone as James Whale's 1931 'Frankenstein.' But it should be. It was Boris Karloff's last appearance in the Frankenstein series and stars Donnie Dunagan, then a child actor.

All films speak to their times. It becomes obvious only after.

I'm an actor and a writer, that's how I think of myself. Sometimes my time is divided equally, sometimes less equally, but that's what I do.

'Monty Python' is now more recognised by the films than by the TV series.

I used to go to the gym regularly and swim an awful lot, but that was when I was unemployed and knew leisure intimately.

For some reason, I always get offered plays when I'm doing plays and then, if I stop doing them, people stop asking me.

I had a girlfriend before I ever had a boyfriend, but it was just a phase.

They are called 'Emos' now, and before that they were 'Goths.' They didn't have a name for it when I was one, but I was that black-wearing teenager and yes, I wore a little eyeliner.

I think one of the few faults in Dickens is that mostly his lead characters are blanks - who is David Copperfield, who is Oliver Twist? And yet he takes such joy in populating the rest of his novels with these fantastic, grotesque people like Pecksmith and so on.

I love going to galleries, particularly the National Portrait Gallery.

I am a gay man who loves James Bond films and snooker - all kinds of working-class pursuits.

The question I ask myself is: have I really just become a squeamish middle-aged man, or has something happened to the horror genre that shows a growing appetite for watching torture, or at least a desire to explore it on film? And if so, why would that be? I can't pretend I know. I just know I don't like it.

Slightly forgettable movies can sometimes make great musicals.

Even though it's meant to be the season of jollity and goodwill, there's something delicious about the anticipation of a Christmassy ghost thrill.

At school I briefly wanted to be a palaeontologist, but I was no good at chemistry and physics.

Fear is an underrated emotion. And that's why I think it's very dangerous to try and cosset children from it. A healthy scare is as good as as a healthy laugh. In fact, they're two sides of the same coin. There is a desire to shield from the knocks and bumps of reality.

I'm a great believer in the beauty and the power of surprise.

When I was seven or eight, I was bought a fantastic book called 'The Movie Treasury of Horror Movies' by Alan G. Frank; it became my bible. It's packed full of the most amazing photos and is still fantastic to look at.

I think a lot of people who say they are bisexual aren't.

The reason I wanted to do 'The First Men in the Moon' was that there is something so challenging in the combination of space travel and the Edwardian period.

One of the pleasures of the original 'Grimm's Fairy Tales' is how incredibly ghastly they are. The ugly sisters have their eyes pecked out by crows.

We made our Moriarty very different to [Conan] Doyle's. He's Irish, and he brings all his charm, his twinkle and his humor to it while he's also terrifying.

It was all quite ghastly and I was very fond of it.

I love the Shakespeare history plays, I love the struggle for the crown as a plot.

One man's fish is another man's poisson.

You can always expect tragedy as well as adventure; that's just how it goes.

We turned the lights off to save money, so you can't really see it. It's the same show. Hopefully, there are lots of laughs and lots of great personal stuff, but it is explicitly a darker season [4 of Sherlock Holmes].

Some facts in life are immutable. One is, trust no-one who uses the word 'trope'.

I prefer sneaking in the back door.

I imagine John Watson thinks love’s a mystery to me, but the chemistry is incredibly simple and very destructive. When we first met, you told me that a disguise is always a self portrait, how true of you, the combination to your safe – your measurements. But this is far more intimate. This is your heart, and you should never let it rule your head. You could have chosen any random number and walked out of here today with everything you worked for. But you just couldn’t resist it, could you? I’ve always assumed that love is a dangerous disadvantage. Thank you for the final proof.

I always compare reading anything on the Internet to listening at doors. If you don't want to hear anything bad about yourself, you should never do it.

If not exactly raging against the dying of the light, I was at least a little cross with it.

When I was your age — about, ooh, a thousand years ago — I loved a good bedtime story. The Three Little Sontarans. The Emperor Dalek's New Clothes. Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday, eh? All the classics.

All pleasure should be a little bent, don't you think?

That's what makes characters interesting. If Sherlock [Holmes] had started out being a straightforward man, we wouldn't be talking about him now. If he became one, that would be interesting. But you have to give him somewhere to go, as [Conan] Doyle did.

[Toby Jones] is completely different. It's a completely different character. He's the darkest villain we've had. There was always something charming and engaging about Moriarty. There was something fascinating and actually amoral, rather than immoral, about Charles Augustus Magnussen. This guy is the purest evil. Sherlock [Holmes] is actually appalled by him.

Benedict is bumbly, sweet, affable; the nicest man you've met.